


1-8 Serious Steven

by iippo



Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [8]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:33:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25398469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iippo/pseuds/iippo
Summary: Steven tries to prove himself to be a worthy Crystal Gem while he and Amethyst navigate their way out of an ancient Gem maze.
Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796686
Kudos: 10





	1-8 Serious Steven

**Author's Note:**

> An alternative universe. See series page for details.

Steven Universe and Amethyst – professionally known by the collective noun the Crystal Gems – had left Beach City late in the morning by using the gem warp technology to go on an important gem mission. They chatted while in the warp stream.

“This is going to be your first serious mission, Steven,” Amethyst said with an important tone of voice. “You gotta be ready.”

“Yes! I’m ready, I’m so ready!” Steven enthused. He would have been a little more convincing if he hadn’t been floating upside down in the warp stream.

“Steven, come on, you’re gonna make yourself sick,” Amethyst chided him and turned him the right way round. As she did so, Steven’s ukulele, which was strapped to his back, bonked her in the eye, and she frowned. “Why did you bring that?!”

“I don’t know! I was excited, and i-it’s mine, and I like it!” Steven waved his arms as he spoke, and the ukulele floated up and as its strap floated over his head, it broke free. When he noticed his precious instrument floating up and away from him, he swam upwards in the warp stream after it.

Amethyst called after him: “Steven get back here! You could get-“

The warp stream dissipated as it reached its destination and Amethyst was standing on the warp pad in an endless field of giant strawberries. Steven had managed to reach his ukulele but unfortunately he was not on the same level as Amethyst, so when the warp ended, he found himself high up in the air. His trajectory and momentum in the warp stream continued and he launched off into the strawberries.

“...hurt,” Amethyst finished her sentence and grimaced. This was not a good start for the first serious mission, she thought.

Steven groaned and got up, covered in strawberry goo. “I-I’m fine!” He called out to Amethyst, who rolled her eyes. “I’m good. I’m just gooey.” He licked his now-delicious arm. However he wasn’t the only one to find his new surface coating delicious: a swarm of butterflies surrounded him, attracted by his sweet strawberry scent, and flung themselves all over his face.

“Aah! They’re in my eyes!” He yelled and tried to run this way and that to get away from them, but it was difficult since he couldn’t see and since they were already stuck to his face. He tripped and bellyflopped onto the ground.

Amethyst stepped up to him and gently swatted at the insects until they left. “They’re just butterflies, Steven,” she said gently.

Steven got up and laughed sheepishly. “Well, they looked a lot bigger when they were on my eyeballs,” he explained. He worried that Amethyst was disappointed in him. But she just laughed.

“Steven, you’re a riot!” She said and headed off.

Steven followed and caught up to her. They started to cross the field and Steven quickly noticed that there were giant-size swords, battleaxes and other ancient weapons, blades red with strawberry juice, strewn all over.

“What is this place?” Steven asked as he wondered at the view. Swords and strawberries seemed like a weird combination.

“Rose said it was some kind of Gem battlefield,” Amethyst explained and also looked around. “I guess the strawberries came later. The Earth’s like that,” she said with a smile. She remembered the way Rose had always loved everything on Earth growing. And now Rose got to somehow grow herself, as Steven – though Amethyst didn’t really understand it. Steven didn’t seem like Rose; he just had her gem.

Steven pondered Amethyst’s words as he looked from the swords to Amethyst and himself and back. The swords were much bigger than either of them; had there been really big Gems battling here? And where had they all gone?

“Look at that!” Amethyst called and interrupted Steven’s thoughts. They came to a huge upside-down pyramid, standing on its tip. It was impossible for that to be a human thing; so it had to have a gem in it, and therefore they should go get it. Steven ran up ahead and walked around the pyramid, but there was no entrance.

“There’s no door!” Steven shouted to Amethyst who was ambling up. But as she got closer, a section of the wall glowed and a door appeared. “Oh hey!” Amethyst exclaimed in surprise.

“Woooaahhhh!” Steven said at the sight of the magic door, and then he repeated his “woooaahhhh!” as they stepped in.

The room was large and circular, with a dome-like ceiling covered in ancient murals. Amethyst noticed that one of the figures on the wall looked like Rose Quartz, but she didn’t say anything. Steven on the other hand yelled:

“Steven’s the best!” His voice echoed back to him, repeating “Steven's the best!"

“Why thank you, pyramid!” He said with a wink and a flair.

Amethyst grinned. “You’re a doof.”

Steven dang near broke his neck craning it this way and that to look at the murals in the ceiling as they walked carefully towards the center of the room. Steven noticed a small pedestal with what looked like a tiny pyramid floating above it, upside down.

“Hey, what’s this thing?” He asked and knelt to look at it closer. The little pyramid was completely smooth and indeed floating above the pedestal. “It’s like a cool floaty triangle thing,” he described it to Amethyst as he passed his hand in the space under the pyramid to check that there was nothing invisible under it holding it up.

Amethyst was looking at the murals and wandered towards Steven. “Hmm, these murals also depict floaty triangle things. Oh, no, wait, they have four corners, so it’s not a triangle... it’s a--”

Suddenly, when Amethyst got closer to Steven, the small pyramid tipped over, floating in the air the right way up now. The Temple began to shake and rumble. “Rhombus!” Amethyst exclaimed in surprise at the ruckus. “What’s happening?” She asked and noticed that her hair started to float.

Before either managed to say anything else, their feet came off the ground. For a moment they felt weightless, but then they realised that they were falling to the ceiling, and fast. They swooped in through a hole in the middle of the ceiling like into a drain and fell to another round room with a dome-like ceiling.

Amethyst landed like a ninja; Steven landed like an old chestnut. She helped him back on his feet.

A hatch sealed the hole they had fallen through, plunging the room into darkness, but thankfully all the torches lining the walls around them lit magically by themselves, casting a flickering glow all around. The walls had several triangle-shaped openings for doorways leading to different corridors. The decor was going heavy on the whole triangle theme. For a moment they just looked around, and then looked at each other.

“Well this seems mysterious,” Amethyst observed.

“What should we do?” Steven asked.

“We should solve the mystery!” Amethyst yelled and hoisted Steven over her head.

“Yeah, mystery solvers!” Steven shouted, and they headed towards one of the doorways. The way the walls of the corridor turned, it was impossible to see what was ahead, and it gave Amethyst pause. She set Steven down.

“But remember, this is a serious mission,” she said with her serious voice.

“Understood,” Steven said with his attempting-to-stay-serious-despite-being-a-clown voice. “Serious Steven!... Activate!” He hollered and accentuated his words by pointing at his head with both hands and then extending his arms in front of him all determined and stuff.

“We don’t want this to be the teacups all over again,” Amethyst said with a serious nod, referring to what had happened in Funland two weeks ago. Steven blushed.

“Hey! I’ve put that behind me!” He huffed indignantly. They went through one of the doorways into a winding corridor.

Steven felt like singing to boost the mood. “Oooh, we’re on a magic treasure hunt, for some magic treasure junk! Something, somethiiiing... magic something!” He sang and pumped his arms to the beat. When they stepped out of the corridor to a new room, the doorway slammed shut behind them automatically. They both startled at the sudden noise and turned to look back. “Uhh...” Steven said, and though she didn’t say anything, Amethyst agreed. She really hoped bringing Steven hadn’t been a huge mistake.

On the opposite side of the room, another triangular doorway glowed, and then the tiles on the floor lit up around them in a random pattern of white light.

“We need to stay on the glowing squares,” Amethyst said.

Steven looked at her and nodded. “Right! Serious Steven!... Go!” He did his serious head pointing arm motions and then hopped across the room touching only the panels that were lit up. “Oh yeah!” He exclaimed when he got to the door and did a little victory dance.

The temple rumbled again and the entire room shook. Steven lost his balance mid-dance and fell onto a panel on the floor that was not glowing. All the glowing panels turned an angry red, and the floor began to collapse, revealing a pit of fire underneath. The panel under Steven began to fall and he barely managed to cling onto the edge of an intact panel.

“Steven!” Amethyst freaked out and started hopping across the panels towards his position.

Steven was slipping and finally his sweaty fingers lost their grip on the cool rock of the panel and he fell. Amethyst hopped faster, summoned her whip and at the last minute managed to catch Steven by the ankle with it and snatch him upwards. Realising that he was not going to die, she exhaled in relief and took a moment, leaving Steven hanging.

Steven just laughed. “Woo-hoo!” He yelled and pumped his fists in the air. “That was-“ he started with excitement but quickly changed tone. “Uhh... seriously dangerous,” he finished and folded his arms, attempting to be serious. “Thank you, Amethyst.”

While he was dangling over the fire, the flames from below ignited Steven’s hair and Amethyst yanked him up and back on his feet. He hastily put out the fire on his hair as they passed through the doorway and into the next chamber. The door slammed shut behind them again, startling Steven. The room rumbled again and Steven groaned.

“We can take a break if you’re not feeling well, Steven,” Amethyst said, looking at him.

“Huh?” He glanced at her, and waved his hand. “Oh, no. I’m okay! Let's keep going!” He flexed his arms to show he was ready.

“Alright,” Amethyst acceded. “But be careful, you might trigger a trap with that gun-show,” she said with a smile, pointing at Steven’s arms.

“Right, I’ll put these babies away, and use my minds.” Steven inspected the wall. “Maybe there’s a clue hidden in these ancient drawings.” He ran his hand along the pattern of the wall. “It looks like, there’s lots of triangles hidden somewhere in this room.”

A section of the wall that Steven was touching slid inwards like a button being pushed, and the panels in the ceiling opened, revealing a spiky trap. 

“Run!” Amethyst yelled and they took off.

Spiky sections of the ceiling fell behind and all around them like spiky hammers.

Steven only barely missed a trap that fell right in front of him. The spikes ripped his shirt and the strap of his ukulele.

“Ah, my ukulele!” Steven exclaimed when he noticed it had fallen. He turned back to go get it.

“Leave it!” Amethyst yelled, but Steven moved quickly and managed to go back, fetch his ukulele and hurry to safety while dodging the danger pummeling from above.

“Now that was a pretty close one,” Amethyst said relieved, when Steven joined him at the doorway to the next room.

Steven laughed nervously. He was pale and sweaty. “Yeah, that was...” They entered the next room, which was full of swinging blades, spikes, falling lava, and open flames. “a pretty... close... one...” Steven finished his sentence. He felt sick.

“Get ready, Steven. This is gonna be intense.” Amethyst said.

Steven closed his eyes. Amethyst’s words mingled in his mind with those of his dad, Greg Universe, when the three of them had gone to Funland together two weeks ago. He had said “get ready Steven, this is going to be intense” when they had got on the Teacups Ride. Steven had claimed to be ready then too, but while Amethyst had just fallen asleep in the ride, Steven had quickly become nauseated. He vaguely remembers saying “I think I need to get off this ride” and jumping out mid-ride when the teacups were spinning around in the air. Unfortunately Steven had landed on Mr. Smiley, who was operating the ride, and the mechanism broke on impact, sending the teacups spinning out of control, wrecking the entire ride and causing mass destruction around Funland. And worst of all, Mr. Smiley had banned Steven from all the rides in Funland forever.

Steven opened his eyes; shame from the memory was still burning on his cheeks. 

To his shock, they had crossed the room.

“Whoa... We made it?”

“I carried you while you took a nap,” Amethyst explained, and turned to pass through the next doorway.

“N-Nap?!” Steven ran after her, cold sweat trickling down his spine.

They entered the next room – except it was the room they had fallen into, with the sealed hole in the ceiling.

“We’re back where we started,” Amethyst said with a frown.

“Whaaaat?!” Steven yelled. He really wanted to get out already.

Amethyst growled in frustration. “Wait here,” she said and ran in through one of the doorways. A few minutes later she came out from one of the other doors. She growled again, and ran back in the door she had come out from, and came out from another door, with a beartrap on her head.

“What is this man?!” Amethyst yelled and ripped the trap off and threw it across the floor. “I keep going straight through the rooms but I always come back here!” She ran back in through one of the doors.

Steven felt really ill, he was cold and sweating and nauseous.

“STOP!” Steven yelled the next time Amethyst appeared.

Amethyst looked at him with a soft expression. “It’s okay, dude, we can-“ she started but he interrupted.

“No, no it’s not! You were right about me. I wanted to do this so bad, but now I just feel like I’m gonna throw up. This is JUST LIKE THE TEACUPS!” He yelled.

“Oh Steven, I-I didn’t really mean that!” Amethyst tried to console him. She really didn’t want to deal with an emotional emergency at the same time as the actual physical how-will-we-ever-get-out-of-here emergency. But something clicked for Steven.

“WAIT!” He yelled, excited. “Ah! Wait Amethyst, what if this is just like the teacups? That’s why we’re getting so lost. That’s why I’m feeling so sick. All the rooms are spinning us around so we end up here!”

Amethyst caught on. She walked to the middle of the room, shapeshifted into a jackhammer, and started to wreck the floor. The floor cracked and then broke completely and they fell into a hidden lower room filled with spinning upside-down pyramids. Steven landed on one of the pyramids and caught Amethyst by her handle and pulled her beside him so she could shapeshift back to herself.

“Whoa!” Steven said and Amethyst agreed. They stared at the strange spinning magical mechanism in awe.

“It must be powered by a gem,” Amethyst said, and Steven looked around. Below them he spotted a stationary obelisk which all the parts of the mechanism were orbiting around. He pointed and with a determined expression on his face he said: “Amethyst, I need to get off the ride now.”

Amethyst nodded and picked Steven up. “Serious Steven! Go!”

She hurled Steven towards the obelisk like a purple Sandy Koufax. He spun like a cannonball and then opened up to land belly first on the side of the obelisk. He grabbed on, slid a little but his grip held. He located the gemstone in the obelisk and started to tug.

The gem would not budge. Steven looked around wondering what he should do. He happened to glance up and it seemed that the decoration on the obelisk was a smiling face, where it previously had looked like a frowny face. And then the gemstone began to glow, and plopped out of the obelisk structure. Steven fell onto the floor, gripping the gem in his arms. Everything stopped moving and floating, and collapsed to the floor.

The structure rumbled one last time as the walls fell outwards and the roof caved in.

Steven and Amethyst emerged from the rubble, looking shellshocked. There were pyramid ruins and squashed strawberries everywhere; it looked like a site of a strawberry massacre. Steven was covered in strawberry goo again. He was still gripping the gemstone. It felt warm, like it had an inner glow.

Amethyst picked her way to him and took the gem and bubbled it.

“The Gem...!” Steven said, snapping out of his daze. Amethyst tapped the top of the bubble and sent it away.

“I’d say you handled that adventure very well,” Amethyst said with a grin. She realised that bringing Steven on the mission had been the opposite of a mistake: if he hadn’t been there, she could have been stuck inside the pyramid for a very long time. She helped Steven up. “Nice job, ‘Serious Steven’.”

“I think prefer to be Regular Steven,” Steven said smiling in relief that the horror was over. But then he realised something even more horrifying.

“My ukulele!” He ran around the rubble until he found his instrument, unharmed, laying on top of a piece of wall as if carefully placed there. He sighed and picked it up. He tuned his ukulele and started a song: “Ooooh... That's the end of another day. It was mighty serious, I'd have to say. The Crystal Gems looked really cool when they made the temple exploo-“

Suddenly he was surrounded by a swarm of butterflies again, and they launched onto his face. His song turned into screams of agony. “-ooo-aaahhh! They’re in my eyes again!” He dropped his ukulele and ran. Amethyst picked it up and walked after him, grinning and shaking her head.


End file.
